I have to agree with this. The foreground is a distraction as it competes with the background which is where you would want your viewers to focus on. I would pick the first image minus 1/3 of the lower half.
Beautiful shot, Harsha, regardless of whether you include the foreground, but personally I would go with less foreground. If you compare the 2 images - one with and one without the foreground - it will be easier for you to determine which of the 2 would make for a stronger image.
Chance2 wrote:
I know this is probably not what you want to hear, but I wouldn't hesitate to crop away everything below the mountains. Not for a second. I think the water, and the fact it's so colorful, detracts from that beautiful sky. The foreground rocks are great, and might work wonders for a daylight shot, but they don't compliment those near black mountains, IMO.
Thanks Dan. As far as processing the MW images, I see lots of variations from natural looking images to crazy color artifacts in the sky from high iso shooting. I am surprised how well D810 handles very high iso settings . The blend of the two images was more of an exercise for future projects. Glad you like these.
Harsha
Danpbphoto wrote:
Harsha, I really don't judge my "likes" or "dislikes" in photography by the method used to produce the image. If the final result pleases me then it is a great image. If not then I move on.
It is nice to have the photographer divulge a blended image but not a requirement for me.
Your images are well done no matter how you achieved/processed them. Yes being a single exposure of your quality is highly regarded and harder to achieve by some... Balance in both images is great!
Dan
I disagree about the foreground. In fact, to my personal tastes I think this is a wonderful composition. I often see comments about foregrounds "distracting" from the sky in MW shots. I don't generally agree with that personally. People don't intentionally shoot during the day with empty boring cloudless skies to make sure the sky doesn't "distract" from the rest of the image. They want clouds and drama to compliment the foreground.
To me, the sky is not typically the subject of these shots. It's a beautiful background to the foreground subject the same way that a nice cloudy sky is. The MW itself is interesting but there are a zillion pictures of it, it's the foreground that differentiates them.
This shot naturally leads my eyes from bottom to top with interesting things the whole way up. I like it. If I had any critique it would pretty soley be on the technical side as, especially on the left and right of the center of the image it is very noisy. I realize that is mostly a technology limitation but maybe something like stacking could have overcome it.
I'm torn between the 2 versions. I like the generally darker mood but I think the image looses something without the brighter highlights. Looks awesome either way though
I like the compositional elements, but agree with Jforkner that the blend line at the mountain ridge feels unnaturally sharp. I also think the reflected light in the lake should be darker. Right now, the sky and reflection values feel too close.
Great shot! I too prefer the darker version and definintely would keep the foreground. At some point you should edit the title of the thread to say Towers of Paine instead of Fizroy.
